You've seen that a hundred times, right? That doesn't mean that it's a good idea. It screws with $VERSION, it alters (for the worse) the exceptions reported by failure-to-require, it doesn't let you call the base class's import method, it pushes to @INC rather than replacing it, and it uses and documents interactions with fields, which can lead one to believe that fields are even remotely relevant to modern (or any!) development of Perl classes.

These behaviors are either correct or can be worked around, and using base.pm
protects you from the problem of remembering to load prereqs and from
setting @INC at runtime.

These are true statements. My chosen workaround for all these problems is to not use base.pm. That doesn't mean it's a good idea for you, or anyone else. Heck, it doesn't mean it's a good idea for me, either. It's just my preference. As with all Perl::Critic policies, you should decide whether it's right for you.